


And I'll Write Your Name

by Chash



Series: Holiday Fills 2018 [13]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - To All the Boys I've Loved Before Fusion, F/M, Minor Bellamy Blake/Nathan Miller - Freeform, Minor Monty Green/Nathan Miller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 04:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16968009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: When Bellamy was in eighth grade, he wrote a letter to Clarke Griffin with all the reasons he absolutely did not like her anymore. It wasn't for her, obviously, just a way to get himself over the stupid, irrational crush and onto something better. And it worked so well that he's done it for every crush since, every time he needed to not like someone.It's a really good system, until the letters actually get sent.





	And I'll Write Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for [womanlalalalalalalala](http://womanlalalalalalalala.tumblr.com/)! Also this is my 500th t100 fic, that's pretty cool.

Bellamy Blake does not identify as "good at feelings." 

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. Realistically speaking, he gets that he's better with feelings than a lot of people, especially in the teenage boy demographic. He's empathetic and fairly good at helping other people through their own emotional issues. It's more that he's bad with his own feelings, especially romantic ones. He's bad at developing feelings for appropriate and realistic people, he's bad at dealing with those feelings, and he's bad at getting over those feelings.

Which is how he came up with the letter thing in the first place. He'd had a stupid, incoherent crush on Clarke Griffin which was bad _before_ she started dating Lexa Commodore, and once that happened, he felt not only annoyed but actively like an asshole about it.

So he wrote a letter, explaining how he'd come to like her--one stupid kiss in one stupid game of spin-the-bottle--and all the reasons he really _shouldn't_ like her, starting with how they couldn't stop fighting and ending with the way she was possibly not even into guys and he should respect that, covering pages of ground between the two.

It wasn't a particularly good letter, but it _was_ a great way to purge his feelings, and over the next few years, any time he caught himself watching the curve of Clarke's smile or agreeing with her in a debate for once, he'd go home, read the letter, and remember all the very good reasons he didn't have a crush on her anymore. 

It worked so well that he did another one explaining to himself why just because he and Echo Argent made out at one debate-club tournament, it did not mean they were going start a functional long-distance relationship, and then another reminding himself that John Murphy was weirdly attractive but it would absolutely never work between them. 

And then his last, for Nathan Miller, which really only needed one reason: he was dating Monty.

He came up with other reasons too, obviously, but Miller dating his foster brother was the biggest one. He could get over the fact that Miller is one of his best friends--that's a plus, mostly--and get over the fact that Miller was kind of a crutch after his mom died when his whole life was in chaos. After all, he's doing a lot better now. Monty's family is great, Octavia's largely stable, his life is in order. But Monty and Miller are together, and that means he will not and cannot have a thing for Miller.

Which is why the two of them breaking up is so catastrophic, and why he goes to find the letters in the first place. There was probably _some_ valid reason to not like Miller somewhere in there. Once he gets going, he can usually keep going for a while; his letter to Clarke was like five pages long, and turned into, not to be too _Hamilton_ about it, an itemized list of thirty years of disagreements.

So all he has to do is reread the letter, and he'll remember all the good reasons that Monty and Miller breaking up doesn't mean his Miller thing is allowed to come back. He can even add a post-script: siblings' significant others are off limits, even after they break up. That seems like a good rule. If he was dating someone and they broke up, he'd think it was weird if Octavia or Monty picked them up on the rebound. 

He's working through the exact wording of the planned post-script when he realizes that he can't find the box of letters, and his whole body goes cold.

His first, obviously incorrect, thought is that he misplaced it during the move to the Greens' house, but he wrote the Miller letter after that, and then he put it in the box with the other letters, and put the box in the corner of his closet. He'd even brought it down about a couple months ago to reread the Clarke letter again after they were in the same group for an English project and it went really well. He remembers thinking about editing it, since she's single again and he knows she IDs as bisexual, but it didn't seem particularly important.

"Must have moved it somewhere this weekend," he mutters. Monty was getting packed for his semester abroad, and it was a good excuse for everyone to reorganize and purge. 

But he turns the room upside down and finds nothing, ends up sneaking into Monty's empty room next to make sure it didn't end up in there somehow. He doesn't look inside anything, doesn't violate privacy any more than he has to, but if his foster brother somehow ended up with a box that contained a "why I don't have a thing for your ex-boyfriend anymore, really" letter, Bellamy needs to know that.

Of course, even though the box isn't in Monty's room, he could have taken it with him for his semester abroad. But if he did, there's no way of knowing that, so Bellamy lets it go, tries not to think about the box stowing away in Monty's luggage. It's got to be somewhere in his own room, he just hasn't figured out where yet.

He goes on not telling himself that right up until Wednesday morning, when Murphy leans against his locker to say, "You're right, it never would have worked between us."

"What," he says, flat. 

"It's a little weird to send a whole letter about it, especially when I never _asked_ if you wanted to fuck me, but I guess it was cool to find out you were thinking about it. Even if you decided to give it a pass."

Bellamy's stomach drops so low it feels like it's actually left his body. He looks up at Murphy, sees he's _got the letter in his hand_ , the familiar envelope the most horrifying thing Bellamy has ever seen.

"What the fuck," he says.

"That was my reaction, yeah."

"Seriously, where did you get that, Murphy?"

He rolls his eyes. "In the mail, where else would I get it? It's a letter." His eyes flick up and down Bellamy. "You actually wrote it, huh?"

"It was a moment of weakness. I wouldn't fuck you if you paid me."

"That's cool, I've got better things to do with my money anyway."

"Glad we're on the same page," he says, and then he sees Clarke, down the hall at her own locker. She's watching him, and he realizes, rapidly, that if Murphy got a letter, Clarke probably got a letter, and _Miller_ got a letter, and his whole life is going to unravel very, very rapidly. "I gotta go," he says, and ducks into the men's bathroom before Clarke can come his way.

Murphy's not a real problem; he and Bellamy aren't friends, he was never a real crush, and he's got a girlfriend now. He thought it was funny, but it's not going to go anywhere else. Echo isn't either, she lives on the other side of the state, and even if she gets the letter, they don't really have a relationship to ruin. 

Which leaves him with two crises: Clarke and Miller.

Clarke's the less obvious but more pressing problem, as she's in his grade and a lot of his classes, including his first-period history class. Miller's a year younger than the two of them, so Bellamy won't see him until after school, if not later. He can _avoid_ Miller.

Unless he cuts class, he has to see Clarke. And his letter to her is definitely rough. He can't imagine she needs a list of reasons they'll never work, and it's been _years_ since that stupid spin-the-bottle kiss, at this point. She'll probably figure out that something weird happened, but he can't imagine she's just going to let it go.

And then, miraculously, she does. She doesn't look at him in history, or in English. He skips lunch because he and Miller have the same lunch period that day and doesn't talk to Clarke through two more classes before the final bell rings and he escapes to his locker.

He's almost convinced himself that she's going to let it go when he hears her ask, "Hey, Blake, you want a ride?"

He glances up at her, but her face is blank, her expression giving nothing away. Clarke's always had a good poker face. 

"You don't have stuff to do?" he asks. "Practice?"

"Nope. Do you want the ride or not?"

If he says no, she might never mention it again. This could be her way of asking if he wants to talk about it, and if he turns the ride down, this will be the end of it. She'll let him off the hook.

But then he'll never know what she thinks about the letter, and that's always going to bug him. Plus, he and Miller take the same bus. He'd been thinking about hiding in Mr. Pike's room and waiting for the late bus, but if Clarke's willing--

"I would love a ride," he says, shouldering his backpack. "Thanks."

He and Clarke still aren't friends, but they get along better than they did when he had his stupid crush on her. They mostly just don't interact unless they have to, and Bellamy can admit he avoids her a little. There's always this worry at the back of his mind that whatever weird fluke that caused him to like her in the first place will flare back up, and everyone in the world is convinced she and Lexa are going to get back together any day now, so that would be bad.

Although it might not be _worse_ than having a crush on his foster brother's ex-boyfriend. Seriously, if he could just opt-out of romantic feelings entirely, that would be _great_. He doesn't need this.

"So, how old was that letter?" Clarke finally asks.

"End of eighth grade. I decided I was going to get over you so I could have a summer romance."

She snorts softly. "How did that work out?"

The truth is that his mom was starting to get sick and he didn't really have time for that kind of thing, but it doesn't seem worth spoiling the decent mood they've got going. "Well, I got over you."

"And you found the letter and got nostalgic and decided to send it to me after all?"

"No." He leans back in his seat, rubbing his face. "Fuck, I honestly have no idea how they got sent out."

There's a long pause, and then Clarke says, a little prickly, "What do you mean, _they_?"

"This is how I get over crushes."

"You write down a list of all the reasons you hate them?"

"Why we wouldn't make a good couple."

"How many did you write?"

"Four."

"Who else got one?"

"You know Echo from debate?"

"Sort of. You had a crush on her?"

"We made out in ninth grade. It wasn't that great, but I still kind of fixated for a while."

"So the letter was basically _you will have better makeout sessions_?"

"And closer ones. She lives like four hours away, it wasn't practical."

"Okay, that's two."

He debates which one to share next, goes with, "Murphy."

"Like--John Murphy? _Murphy_ Murphy?"

"I had this dream about making out with him and it fucked me up for like a week, until I wrote down a complete list of reasons I didn't want to actually make out with him." 

Clarke clucks her tongue. "It seems like a lot of your crushes start with kissing. Have you tried casual sex? Just to see if it's an option for you?"

Bellamy hasn't tried sex at all, but he's not telling her that right now, or ideally ever. He's not hung up on virginity or masculinity or whatever, it's just not something he wants to discuss with her. 

"Maybe I only kiss people who are really good at it."

"Thanks, I think." She pauses. "Was the list of reasons not to date Murphy longer than the list of reasons not to date me?"

"No, yours was the longest. I was inspired."

"Thanks. You know I'm bi, right? Not a lesbian. And Lexa and I broke up."

"I didn't in eighth grade. It's not like I go back and edit them," he says, conveniently omitting that he'd been thinking about doing just that.

"And neither did whoever sent them out."

"It must be my sister," he says, sighing. "It's not like Monty's parents would do it."

"Did you guys have a fight? Is she pissed at you?"

"She's twelve, she's pissed at the world."

"That sounds right." She shoots him a look. "That was only three. Who's the fourth?"

He sighs. "Miller."

"Shit," she breathes. "Like--Nate Miller. Like Monty's boyfriend."

"Ex-boyfriend," says Bellamy. "Yeah. It was mostly before they were going out. When I was dealing with all the stuff with my mom, he was really great. I kind of imprinted."

"But he and Monty broke up, right?"

"That makes it slightly less awkward, yeah. But only slightly."

"Was your whole reason for not liking him that he was dating Monty?"

"Pretty much."

"So if he gets it--"

"Yeah."

"I don't actually know what you're agreeing to. I was going to say he might be interested, but you sound like you're dying."

"I was going to say it would be really awkward."

"It never occurred to you that someone you like might like you back?"

"It's not going very well so far."

"Isn't Murphy not being interested kind of a good thing?"

"Kind of." He sighs. "Thanks for being cool about this, by the way."

"It's flattering, right? Finding out someone likes you?"

"I wouldn't know, I've never found out anyone likes me."

She takes the left turn onto his street without his having to remind her. "I knew how to spin a bottle and get it to land on the right person even in seventh grade," she says, once she's pulled into his driveway. "Good luck with the whole Miller situation."

He's not sure what to say besides, "Thanks for the ride."

"Don't mention it," she says, and he watches her drive away.

It definitely could have been worse.

*

Miller doesn't call or text that night, which he tries not to let bother him, and Octavia denies any knowledge of the box or the letters or anything convincingly enough that he has to believe her. He has no real grounds for accusing her of doing anything once he's asked and she's said no.

So he's back at square one, Murphy smirking at him in the hall, dodging Miller when he sees him, feeling a weird lurch every time he sees Clarke. She looks _worried_ , like she's actually dwelling on this, and that's weird too, and not something he's prepared to deal with.

But it means that when Miller makes a beeline for him Friday morning, he feels comfortable assuming Clarke will have his back, so he ducks into her conversation with Raven Reyes and slides his arm around Clarke's waist.

Raven's eyebrows shoot up. "Blake."

"Reyes." He wets his lips, turns his attention to Clarke with an expression that he hopes somehow pulls double duty as "adoring boyfriend" to Raven and "damsel in distress" to Clarke.

It must get across some message, because her expression softens and she leans into him. "Morning, Bellamy."

Impossibly, Raven's eyebrows go even higher. " _Bellamy_?"

Bellamy goes by his last name because Mr. Hartford, their seventh-grade science teacher, misread his roster and thought Bellamy's name was Blake Bellamy, which is, admittedly, a much more normal name. But Bellamy didn't correct him, and no one else did either, mostly because they wanted to see how long it would go. And once you're in the habit of calling someone something, it sticks.

He calls everyone else by last name too, mostly to remind them that Blake _isn't_ his name, but that's more of a personal preference.

"Did you forget I have a real name?" he asks.

"Yeah, I'm the one acting weird here."

"I told you Bellamy and I were hanging out," says Clarke, which he wishes he could react to but probably can't.

"Not that you were on a snuggling before first-period basis. Did you know about this one, Miller?"

Miller goes by his last name to avoid confusion with Nate Thompson, which is a much better thing to think about than what is actually happening in his life. It's hard to believe pretending to date Clarke beats having a conversation with Miller, but somehow here they are.

"Nope, this is news to me," says Miller. "Is this why you're suddenly skipping lunch?"

It's only been a couple days, so Bellamy doesn't feel judgement for his life choices is entirely warranted, even if he has been being fucking weird. It could have just been a busy couple of days, and Miller would have been reading into things.

At the same time, it's not normal for them to go this long without talking, and Bellamy _is_ avoiding him, so he has no real right to get indignant about the whole thing.

"He's been helping me with a project," Clarke says, smooth. "You have late lunch today, right?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. We should be done in a few days," she tells Miller.

"Sorry I've been busy," Bellamy adds. Miller hasn't mentioned the letter, so maybe they can just pretend it never happened. It was clearly older, just like Clarke's; he doesn't date them, but the information was from just after Monty and Miller started dating. And if Miller doesn't feel the same, he'll probably just let Bellamy off the hook. He's not Murphy. Or Clarke, for that matter.

"Are we still on for gaming this weekend?" he asks. "Or are you going to be too busy?"

"Saturday should be fine," he says. Octavia will be there, so it won't be that weird. Probably. And he can't actually avoid Miller forever. He doesn't want to. 

The first bell rings, and to Bellamy's shock, Clarke takes his hand as they walk to first period. It's not a big deal, really, but it's public and unambiguous and everyone is really going to think they're together.

"I could use a fake relationship right now," is how she explains it at lunch. They're in Ms. Rodriguez's room, since she likes them and has a free period right now.

Of course, she's also _still in the room_ , so that's weird.

"Excuse me?" she asks.

"Just plotting," Clarke says, flashing a smile. "Bellamy is having a minor crisis."

"Why do you need a fake relationship?" he asks.

"Because everyone is convinced me and Lexa are going to be back together any day."

"But you're not?"

"I don't think so."

"I don't know her that well," he admits. She's popular, maybe more popular than Clarke, but in that aloof way he associates with teen movie villains. Everyone says they like her, but she's not that close to anyone. 

Not that Clarke is a social butterfly. But he can't help wondering how much she'd fly under the radar if she hadn't been one of the first kids in their grade with a steady relationship, and a queer one at that.

"I like her, we're still friends. But she's got this--I like that she's passionate and driven. But she can be myopic."

"Good SAT vocab there."

She elbows him. "You know what I mean. Have you and Miller talked at all?"

"No."

"Would you want to date him?" She sounds curious, a little small. "If it wasn't for the whole Monty thing."

"I don't know." He pushes his hair off his face with a huff. "I think when Monty's back, they'll get back together. I get why they broke up, but I don't think it's going to last."

"Does no one at this school understand what breakups are?" Clarke grumbles. It sounds like she's only half joking.

"If Monty was still here, I'd say they were broken up," he says. "But he's spending a semester in France and he'll be back in the spring. I'm not going to be the reason he comes home and finds out his ex really did move on."

She winces. "Yeah, okay. But what if they'd never dated? Would you want to date Miller?"

"Who cares?"

"You sent four letters," Clarke says. "And if they were all like mine, they weren't love letters. They were anti-love letters. They were lists of reasons why your crushes were stupid and you shouldn't have them. Have you ever had a crush you didn't write to and tried to actually date?"

"No," he admits. 

"And if Miller hadn't been dating Monty, you would have come up with another letter talking yourself out of liking him."

"Probably, yeah."

"And you're pretending to date me just to get out of having a conversation with him. Can't you just tell him it was an old letter and you're not interested in him? Why is Miller different from me and Murphy?"

"Because I'm actually friends with Miller," he says. "No offense, but it's not like you and I hang out. There wasn't much to ruin."

"Nowhere to go but up." She sighs. "You really want to lie to your friend about your relationship to get out of having a conversation?"

"Just until the end of the semester," he says, even though _want_ is a strong word. But if Clarke wants a fake boyfriend and it would help him, it's a victimless crime.

Like Clarke said, he wouldn't be dating Miller anyway.

"End of the semester," Clarke agrees. "I can live with that."

"You know I'm going to gossip about this with the other teachers, right?" Ms. Rodriguez asks, dry.

Clarke doesn't miss a beat. "As long as it's just the teachers, sure. We deserve it."

"Yeah," Bellamy agrees. "We definitely do."

*

Fake dating someone isn't nearly as difficult as Bellamy would have expected. If anything, in fact, it's too easy. The biggest change is how much time he spends with Clarke, but as it turns out, spending more time with Clarke isn't bad. When Bellamy was in middle school, he hadn't yet learned how to disagree with people without it becoming this giant argument, but now that casual shit-talk is a hallmark of most of his close relationships, being with Clarke more is easy. They can tease each other, but they have a lot in common too, share a lot of classes, are applying to a lot of the same colleges. She hasn't played a lot of video games, but she's interested to learn, and she has a lot of good Netflix recommendations for him. She even gets along with Octavia, which is a minor miracle.

Then again, she is giving them rides every day. Octavia loves anyone who keeps her off the school bus.

The major miracle is with Miller, who is being so normal it's actually a little unnerving. They hang out and play video games the Saturday after the fake relationship starts, and Miller has a lot of questions about how and why he and Clarke got together, but they had the group project they were working on that had inspired Bellamy to revisit his letters in the first place. It was easy enough to turn that into a relationship origin story, a crush that somehow didn't go away over the summer.

And once he's done that, Miller is just Miller again. September bleeds into October and November and absolutely nothing about their relationship is different, not even slightly. 

"Isn't that what you wanted?" Clarke asks. It's a week before Thanksgiving and she's on his couch with her feet in his lap, doing her reading. No one else is home and won't be for hours, so there's no even real reason for them to be hanging out, but his family will be home eventually and Clarke was bored. "The whole point was that stuff was normal with Miller."

"I know. I'm just still waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"So you bring it up. _Hey, remember that weird letter I sent you? That was weird, right?_ "

"Wow, what a great conversation starter."

She digs her heel into his thigh. "I'm trying to help. If you want to talk to Miller about it, you don't just have to wait for him to start it."

"If I mention it, he'll think I care."

"You _do_ care."

"It is weird, right? You told me about getting the letter, Murphy told me about getting it, Echo's came back with a wrong address. And Miller just doesn't care?"

"Maybe he never got it."

He frowns. "Never got it?"

"Yeah. Maybe it went to the wrong address or his parents misplaced it before he got it or he lost it or something. What if Miller just never got the letter and he has no idea why you were acting weird for a week or two?"

"It wasn't that long."

"It really was." She smiles at him over her book. "You got better."

"Thanks."

"I still don't get what exactly you want," she says, and it's so quiet, like it's this giant revelation. Like she spends a lot of time wondering about what's going on with him. "Are you still in love with Miller?"

The answer comes quickly. "No." He sighs. "Honestly, I don't know if I ever was. I don't know if I really wanted to date him. Jesus, I probably suck at dating."

"No, you don't."

"We're not really dating."

"So, you think if we were, you'd be bad at it? It's pretty much the same skill set."

"There's no pressure," he says. "I'm not worrying about being a good boyfriend or making sure I'm paying enough attention to you or whatever. And I don't have to kiss you."

"Wow, you don't have to kiss me. Lucky you."

She sounds genuinely hurt, and he can't blame her. "Fuck, that's not what I meant. It's not like--of course I _want_ to kiss you, but I'm not, so it's not--I don't have to worry about being bad at it."

"I thought you made out with that girl from debate club."

"For ten minutes. It's not like I got feedback. I really didn't mean it like that," he adds, softening his voice.

"Do you really want to kiss me?" she asks.

It had not, at any point in the entire course of their relationship since seventh grade, ever occurred to Bellamy that kissing Clarke Griffin outside of a spin-the-bottle game might have been an option. It hadn't occurred to him he could kiss her during a spin-the-bottle game until they were there, on the floor across from each other, and she was doing her first spin. As the bottle went around, he thought, wildly, that she might kiss him, and then she did.

He'd kissed four girls that night, Clarke only once, but he'd already liked her before then. She hadn't been his crush because she kissed him, he'd just been denying it. Giving himself reason after reason to not like Clarke Griffin, rereading them every few months, when he wanted a reminder.

He's spent so long telling himself he _didn't_ have a crush on her, that it wasn't even slightly possible. Not having a crush on Clarke Griffin was a part of his identity, a personality trait.

One he had to work very hard at. One he had to remind himself of almost constantly.

"Yeah," he breathes, and she puts her book away and climbs into his lap.

It's nothing like the spin-the-bottle kiss, not light or quick, no circle of kids around them, giggling at the first press of lips. It's just him and Clarke, her mouth so warm and close, her fingers tangling in his hair, his hands sliding up under the back of her shirt, time losing meaning as their mouths slide together. 

"I don't want to be your fake girlfriend anymore," Clarke murmurs, bumping her nose against his.

"Yeah," he says, breathless, stupid, gleeful. "Definitely not."

*

Octavia owns up in February, once Monty is home and he and Miller have reconciled and Bellamy has almost totally forgotten about the letters going out in the first place. He knows, of course, that his girlfriend has a long list of reasons he said he'd never date her, but it was that list that make Clarke think he might actually _like her_ , since about half of them were things he resented liking about her and the other half were either outdated or his protesting too much.

On reflection, he was talking himself _into_ liking Miller and out of liking Clarke, without even realizing it. It's a miracle it ever got sorted out.

So when Octavia comes in with the box of letters, he's not as mad as he could have been. But still, he _is_ her brother.

"So, you lied to my face, huh?"

"Yeah," she says, at least sounding a little guilty about it. "You would have killed me!"

"You would have deserved it."

"Because that letter to Clarke turned out sooo bad," she says, with a roll of her eyes.

"It could have. And that was just _one_ letter, the one to Miller--"

"I didn't send that one," she says. Bellamy blinks, and she nods to the box. "Open it, it's still there."

It's a little surreal, opening up the box and seeing the single remaining letter, addressed to Miller in his own blocky hand. Clarke asked him once why he'd put _actual addresses_ on there, and he'd explained it added to the sense of closure. It made the whole thing real.

"Jesus, Clarke was right. Why not?"

"Because I wanted him and Monty to get back together, duh. I wanted you to date someone, but it was supposed to make my life less stressful because you had something to do other than worrying about me. You hooking up with Monty's ex would have just made everything worse."

"That was still a shitty thing to do and then lie about. You're really fucking lucky it turned out okay."

"Sorry, I can't hear you over how much you owe me forever for this."

"O."

She huffs. "Fine, I'll never help you again. Happy?"

He puts his arm around her, gives her a squeeze. "So happy, yeah."


End file.
